help my mom stay healthy/fit!

[Nexxus]

OK so I posted this over in the female bbing section but no one is yet to reply after ~100 views so I'll post it here since I think it could be relevant here as well as maybe some of you guys' wives are going through same problems or something?

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Hey guys, I love my mom (obviously) and I'm visiting her right now for christmas break, but anyways, she's really weak, she's 52 years old now and she's always done a bunch of dancing (ballet) as well as some yoga and stuff as the years went by. But she's never been strong and recently she's just been walking a lot slower and she has been having lower back problems and I hate watching her carry heavier weights around (like when she carries groceries and stuff).

She knows that I'm really into health and lifting so she often asks me ''how to strengthen core'' or ''how to jump higher'' as those things will be practical for her dance classes, and tbh I don't always know how to best answer, I told her to squat, and then she showed me her bodyweight squat and she struggled to get down to parralel (she could do it though), she did 2 bodyweight squats and then complained about lower back pain and even some pain the knees (I'm pretty sure she had more squats in her though)... Then I asked her to do a pushup and she wasn't doing a real push up, more like she was kinda just moving her shoulder blades back and forth lol. I showed her how to do a proper girl push up (with the knees on the floor) and then she couldn't even do a single girl push up without me helping her pull her up from the floor.

I'm really worried that soon enough she won't have enough strength to walk around and carry groceries back and forth and eventually not even have enough strength to stand up straight and stuff. I'm also worried about her getting osteoperosis or some other stuff. I told her that the best thing to do would probably be to get a good personal trainer to make sure she keeps good bone strength and to focus on her lower back problems and strengthening of her core. But IDK what else to really tell her, I said that it'd probably be best to work with machines in the gym as free weights are probably too complicated in technique and probably too heavy for her (like I highly doubt she could bench press/squat with a bar/deadlift lol).

So anyways, not really quite sure what I'm asking for here, but I figured that maybe you guys might have some ideas as to help her keep good bone strength and strengthen her core so she doesn't have lower back problems and avoids osteoperosis for as long as possible. Do you think it'll be possible for her to eventually be able to do real push ups (or at least real girl push ups) and more bodyweight squats? Also do you think my advice for her to get a personal trainer to work on these issues is good? Any other things you could recommend? Any comments are appreciated

EDIT: I think an admin deleted the thread in female section, so now it's only this thread lol

[2BLAZERS]

I know the feeling, watching my inlaws physically age very quickily is really frustrating for my wife. If they don't want help, not much you can do. My mom can run circles around them and she is ten years older at 67.

First step would be a full on physical by her doctor. Thiis will rule out any complications such as low blood counts, heart disease, weak hips, etc...
Second step would likely be getting her eating right (diet) and to just be more active: ie walk more, garden, cleanhouse, walk, site see, walk, chase grandkids, walk, swim, walk, etc....If all she has done for a decade is sit around with a few dance classes a trainer is a waste at this point...
Third step find some active activies she likes and wants to do and get her going to them: chair areobics, swim classes, walking clubs, etc...
Fourth step, a personal trainer once she is able and willing to....

Fifth, remember she is in her 50s and it will take time. A lot of this is up to her with support of course. Don't expect her to be running marathon's and a fitness model in six months.

[crupiea]

It is nice of you to want to help her.

Its her diet.

I would be willing to bet that she does not eat enough and the stuff she does eat has very little protein in it.

This should be priority number one. The weight lifting should be number two afer she gets this squared away.

[dungeonmistress]

(1) physical. she is past menopause. things change as we age.
(2) as others have said - diet. Protein-rich, and enough calories to support her activity. Calcium and vitamin D - and did you know that weight bearing exercise is excellent to stave off osteoporosis?
(3) if the dr clears her physically, get her into a gym. She can do a full body workout 3 x a week to start out; that would insure she isn't doing too much per body part. start out with lightish weights in the 15 rep range, 2 exercises per body part would be ok, 2-3 sets to start. she should do this for about 3 months. do NOT be in a hurry or else she might quit or injure herself.
(4) on days she isn't training, i would have her do some cardio starting out at 15-20 minutes and working up to about 30 minutes for now. in 3 months if she decides to stay with the program, you can decrease the reps, increase the weights and kick up the sets to 3-4. You can do 2 body part per training session splits and have her work out 4 days a week with weights, or more, depending on her time and desire.

[bodyhard]

F'ck man your moms is only 52, the way you are describing her is like she is 70. Something is really wrong.

[Nexxus]

I know the feeling, watching my inlaws physically age very quickily is really frustrating for my wife. If they don't want help, not much you can do. My mom can run circles around them and she is ten years older at 67.

First step would be a full on physical by her doctor. Thiis will rule out any complications such as low blood counts, heart disease, weak hips, etc...
Second step would likely be getting her eating right (diet) and to just be more active: ie walk more, garden, cleanhouse, walk, site see, walk, chase grandkids, walk, swim, walk, etc....If all she has done for a decade is sit around with a few dance classes a trainer is a waste at this point...
Third step find some active activies she likes and wants to do and get her going to them: chair areobics, swim classes, walking clubs, etc...
Fourth step, a personal trainer once she is able and willing to....

Fifth, remember she is in her 50s and it will take time. A lot of this is up to her with support of course. Don't expect her to be running marathon's and a fitness model in six months.

She already does a lot of walking and cleaning house etc, also she's not overweight or anything though, if anything she seems to be really health conscious, when I say that though, I mean she buys a lot of ''organic food'', ''brown rice > white rice'', ''when I eat ice-cream it just turns straight to fat'', etc basically she's like the biggest bro-scientist I know lol. I'm trying to drill in her head that all that stuff is bro-science and just stuff spouted by the media but it's kind of hard to do when someone believes in some bs for such a long time.

It is nice of you to want to help her.

Its her diet.

I would be willing to bet that she does not eat enough and the stuff she does eat has very little protein in it.

This should be priority number one. The weight lifting should be number two afer she gets this squared away.

Ya I def agree with this, she doesn't eat much protein at all. She's also at a good healthy weight (not really sure what her height/weight is) but keeps telling me how she wants to lose like 10 lbs, and I'm just like ''mom you don't need to lose weight, you're at a healthy weight'', but then she shows me pictures/videos of skinny ballet dancers and I don't really know how I'm supposed to react to that... I kinda just facepalm lol

(1) physical. she is past menopause. things change as we age.
(2) as others have said - diet. Protein-rich, and enough calories to support her activity. Calcium and vitamin D - and did you know that weight bearing exercise is excellent to stave off osteoporosis?
(3) if the dr clears her physically, get her into a gym. She can do a full body workout 3 x a week to start out; that would insure she isn't doing too much per body part. start out with lightish weights in the 15 rep range, 2 exercises per body part would be ok, 2-3 sets to start. she should do this for about 3 months. do NOT be in a hurry or else she might quit or injure herself.
(4) on days she isn't training, i would have her do some cardio starting out at 15-20 minutes and working up to about 30 minutes for now. in 3 months if she decides to stay with the program, you can decrease the reps, increase the weights and kick up the sets to 3-4. You can do 2 body part per training session splits and have her work out 4 days a week with weights, or more, depending on her time and desire.

2) agreed, she's really intrigued by how I count calories now (she didn't know I did this until recently) and has seemed open to the idea of starting to count calories, good idea with calcium and vitamin D supplementation too, I'll tell her about that. And ya I was aware of weight bearing exercise helping vs osteoperosis
3 & 4) this is a good idea. But she literally hates anything to do with lifting weights or strength training lol. She's a member of a gym chain with like 3 gyms in the area and can go to any of them (and does), but it's one of those high-class gyms where it's literally all older people which I don't think is necessarily bad, but it's more like some posh upper-class spa than a gym (they got some nice swimming pools and saunas and massage parlours though! not enough heavy free weights for me though lol). All she does at them though is yoga and some dance classes though. I encouraged her to try out a ''body-pump'' group class which is kinda like a group full body workout with light weights but apparently she went and after 5 minutes she left and her excuse was '' I hate anything to do with weight lifting and as soon as we started doing bodyweight squats I left''... So not quite sure how I encourage her to work on her strength. I've told her that while I'm here I'd be willing to go to the gym with her and show her a few exercises with machines or really light dumbbells and stuff, she actually seemed pretty open to that idea I guess since I'm her son and I think we may be doing that soonish.

thanks for posts and advice all

[dungeonmistress]

3 & 4) this is a good idea. But she literally hates anything to do with lifting weights or strength training lol. She's a member of a gym chain with like 3 gyms in the area and can go to any of them (and does), but it's one of those high-class gyms where it's literally all older people which I don't think is necessarily bad, but it's more like some posh upper-class spa than a gym (they got some nice swimming pools and saunas and massage parlours though! not enough heavy free weights for me though lol). All she does at them though is yoga and some dance classes though. I encouraged her to try out a ''body-pump'' group class which is kinda like a group full body workout with light weights but apparently she went and after 5 minutes she left and her excuse was '' I hate anything to do with weight lifting and as soon as we started doing bodyweight squats I left''... So not quite sure how I encourage her to work on her strength. I've told her that while I'm here I'd be willing to go to the gym with her and show her a few exercises with machines or really light dumbbells and stuff, she actually seemed pretty open to that idea I guess since I'm her son and I think we may be doing that soonish.

This place sounds like the last stop before death lol. All the posh pampering will get her nothing. She needs to do work - hard work - in order to make any headway in her physical being. You don't get that with massage and floating around with a bunch of old people in a pool. It's unfortunate that she "hates" lifting - truly, she hasn't even tried it long enough to form such a strong negative opinion. Sure it hurts at first, but it's the same pain that makes come back workout after workout. maybe she's just lazy lol.

What might work is this: get a picture of her when she's not looking. Then do a side-by-side comparison with Ernestine Shepherd, the world's oldest female competitive bodybuilder, who is in her 70's and didn't start lifting til she was in her 50's. here she is - she's awesome!

[Black Sunday]

3 & 4) this is a good idea. But she literally hates anything to do with lifting weights or strength training lol. She's a member of a gym chain with like 3 gyms in the area and can go to any of them (and does), but it's one of those high-class gyms where it's literally all older people which I don't think is necessarily bad, but it's more like some posh upper-class spa than a gym (they got some nice swimming pools and saunas and massage parlours though! not enough heavy free weights for me though lol). All she does at them though is yoga and some dance classes though. I encouraged her to try out a ''body-pump'' group class which is kinda like a group full body workout with light weights but apparently she went and after 5 minutes she left and her excuse was '' I hate anything to do with weight lifting and as soon as we started doing bodyweight squats I left''... So not quite sure how I encourage her to work on her strength. I've told her that while I'm here I'd be willing to go to the gym with her and show her a few exercises with machines or really light dumbbells and stuff, she actually seemed pretty open to that idea I guess since I'm her son and I think we may be doing that soonish.

thanks for posts and advice all

This place sounds like the last stop before death lol. All the posh pampering will get her nothing. She needs to do work - hard work - in order to make any headway in her physical being. You don't get that with massage and floating around with a bunch of old people in a pool. It's unfortunate that she "hates" lifting - truly, she hasn't even tried it long enough to form such a strong negative opinion. Sure it hurts at first, but it's the same pain that makes come back workout after workout. maybe she's just lazy lol.

What might work is this: get a picture of her when she's not looking. Then do a side-by-side comparison with Ernestine Shepherd, the world's oldest female competitive bodybuilder, who is in her 70's and didn't start lifting til she was in her 50's. here she is - she's awesome!

This is my aunt. A few years back i asked her what she did at the gym and she told me she lifted weights. Never asked any more than that. She also belongs to some dance club, she enjoys dancing and brought the band and some of her dance partners to her last birthday party. My mom got a picture in the mail a few weeks ago. It seems that my aunt is the pride of her gym and they posted her pic on their ******** page. She's a real hoot.

And by the way she was 91 this past summer and still going strong, plenty of energy, not huge or overly muscular and if i recall she took a fall at her daughter's house a few years back and broke her hip. Didn't stop her. I never hear her whine about diet, or counting calories. Haven't got a clue if she does or she doesn't.

[dungeonmistress]

This is my aunt. A few years back i asked her what she did at the gym and she told me she lifted weights. Never asked any more than that. She also belongs to some dance club, she enjoys dancing and brought the band and some of her dance partners to her last birthday party. My mom got a picture in the mail a few weeks ago. It seems that my aunt is the pride of her gym and they posted her pic on their ******** page. She's a real hoot.

And by the way she was 91 this past summer and still going strong, plenty of energy, not huge or overly muscular and if i recall she took a fall at her daughter's house a few years back and broke her hip. Didn't stop her. I never hear her whine about diet, or counting calories. Haven't got a clue if she does or she doesn't.

Your aunt is awesome!

[Black Sunday]

Your aunt is awesome!

I'll be sure to pass that along next time i see her

[2BLAZERS]

F'ck man your moms is only 52, the way you are describing her is like she is 70. Something is really wrong.

But the way the general population is....there are many professional obese business people that cann't even walk up stairs.